So today, I was out driving, made a stop, got back in my wagon... reversed out of the driveway, and barely got into 1st gear.  Tried to go into 2nd gear, and the clutch pedal went to the floor!  Turns out the master cylinder is leaking, and it looks like it might be the seals near the pedal inside the wagon.  There's fluid all over the piston or whatever it's called.

My questions... can the cylinder be rebuilt?  Can I replace those seals and be done with it?  Or do I need to buy a whole new master cylinder?  And if I need to buy a new cylinder, does it have to be All-Trac specific?

I would not recommend rebuilding them. They get gunk and crap in there that scores/scratches the inner walls so its worth the little extra money to get brand new parts.

So you're aware, it is a somewhat lengthy and relatively involved job (well, it was on my car). I can go into detail if you're interested as I just did the job about a month or 2 ago. Also, you may want to take a look at the slave cylinder since there is junk and grime in the system.

Also, I have a spare (new) Master cylinder for sale for very cheap if you're interested.

Thanks, I would appreciate any advice.  I do have my repair manual now, so hopefully that will no be confusing!  (I've changed out the timing belt / water pump on my Honda a year ago, so I'm not afraid of working on my car... lol.)

Is the part OEM from Toyota or something else?  And about how much would you want for it?  My friend and I are going to try bleeding the line tomorrow, to see if it's possible to keep the old one in temporarily and just check the fluid every time the car is started up.  I'd just rather replace the cylinder though!

Which cylinder do you have? There is one with a slanted reservoir and one that is upright. The one I have for sale is the upright one (rockauto.com sent me the wrong one). If so I'd like to get 25$ shipped. Its still in the package and everything. Its the Rhinopac M1613 ($45 new on rockauto + shipping).

Anyway, for mine in addition to disconnecting the clutch pedal I had to disconnect the brake pedal and the brake booster in order to make clearance to get the cylinder out. Also there is only 2 bolts holding the cylinder in but you will find that the one of the upper left is an extreme PITA to get at. I had to use 2 universal joints and 2 different sized extensions in order to remove it. Also the clutch line was a real PITA to get threaded in because it kept trying to go in at an angle. Toyota doesn't sell them anymore so if it gets crossthreaded you're going to the junkyard to try to find a new line.

Thats about all I can remember for now.

Thanks JC, will think about it.  I see the OEM master cylinder is about $114, so $25 is looking damn good.  Is the Rhinopac brand new (i.e. not rebuilt)?  Do you have a new seal as well?  (Seal is like $1 something at Sparks Toyota, so I can't imagine why Rhinopac would not include one...)

I just want to thank Jcmcc for the master cylinder... this goes into the wagon tomorrow.  Can't wait to get back in a fully operational state again!

Quoted from Jcmcc

I would not recommend rebuilding them. They get gunk and crap in there that scores/scratches the inner walls so its worth the little extra money to get brand new parts.

Rebuilding a master cylinder is a very easy job. I rebuit my Landcruiser clutch master 30 000km ago without any issue since that time ...

However, I admit that a afthermarket  clutch master for Corolla is not expensive. So it's probably a good solution

^ Yeah, it was down to buying a rebuild kit for $25, or getting a whole new (aftermarket) one from Jcmcc for $25 shipped.  I chose the latter

So here is my advice for anyone needing to change out their clutch master cylinder:

Step 1 - pay someone else to do it!

No really, this job was quite an undertaking.  I think it took me more than 4 hours, partly because I was working alone for most of the procedure, and partly because I had never changed out anything like this.  I managed to remove the cylinder without removing the brake booster or whatever that black circular thing was that kept getting in my way.  The trick is to remove one of the two threaded studs that are on each side of the piston.  If your replacement cylinder has new studs, just use a vice grip to remove one (if they're really jammed in there like mine were).  My friend recommended I use two nuts, one against the other at the end inside the wagon, to remove them, but I found that I had little room to do this.

Anyways once you have one of those studs out, the cylinder is easier to pull from the engine bay.  I also removed the reservoir to help get at the clutch line fitting, and following the repair manual, also disconnected that same piece of tubing at the other end so that I could move it over & out of the way (also have to remove a bracket in the middle).  I made sure when I put the new cylinder in that I had a perfectly clean 19mm socket to pull & replace its reservoir.  I used compressed air to blow out the lines, since the fluid looked so damn cloudy before.  (Used a rag on the other end of each line to make sure the fluid didn't splatter all over the place.)

It turns out though, when bleeding the system when everything was back together, that my slave cylinder is leaking like a mofo!  So I'm off to a parts store right now to pick up a replacement.  May not get to it today... even in FL it's a bit too cold!  48 F right now...

Edit: slave cylinder bought and installed.  Wagon is drivable again!

awesome news that you got it all together. It took me right around 4 hours too, and thats with shop tools so yeah its quite a task. glad to hear its running again.